The Student Conference in the University of Portsmouth

St. Patrick’s College, London and The Student Conference

Like all BSc. Computing final year Students from the university, we also need to do the final year project. As we, the St-Patrick’s students do our Degree program as on an off campus mode, lecturers come from the university to see our progress in the project by means of posters and prototype. From the posters and prototype, the lecturers from the University select the best ones to attend the Student Conference at the University every year. The conference is aimed for the students so that they can show their products to the prospective students, lecturers of Portsmouth University and people from the Industry. The conference holds great prospects because students can get an unbiased and broader evaluation of the work done from diverse perspectives. Sometimes, if the product is of good standard and has business prospect, the student might get a possibility to extend the scope of the project from being academic to commercial. As it is not easy for a fresh overseas graduate to enter the job market, these opportunities can prove very effective to land a job or a business contract. Not only that, let’s say even if someone doesn’t get such a chance, there are opportunities to learn about what kind of people or product the industry is looking for and look at the other projects from the University students to have a better idea of where we as individuals and St-Patrick’s students stand. The competitive element of the conference is addressed by three prizes on three different categories- the best product, the best poster and the best presenter.

The Conference Day - The dawn

This year, the conference was held on the 28th March. Six of us from Cohort-6 were chosen to attend the conference. There were two more students from Cohort-5 who went with us to attend the Conference. Mr. Sundar Subbiah was the coordinator of the group of eight students. The contingent rolled off to Portsmouth at 10:30 with an air of enthusiasm and positiveness around us All of us enjoyed the one and half hour journey. We were excited as most of us were going to the University for the first time.

At the University of Portsmouth

At around 12 o’clock we reached the university after a short walk from the station. We entered into the campus and the first building we saw was the convocation hall. Personally, it gave me a wonderful feeling to see the hall because at that point I was dreaming about me standing tall with pride on the stairs of the building with my gown and hat on and the certificate in my hand posing for the graduation day picture. It was a feeling I can’t express in words. I was thinking I can’t wait to come back here for my Graduation Day. Following the warm welcome from Dr. Kate Dingley and Penny Hart, we felt welcome as one among the students in the university. The swift response to our printing and stationery needs a special note of addressing here.

In the conference room, we met Penny Hart and she exceeded all my expectations about how we were going to be treated. She was everywhere. She assigned our places in the room, gave us support to stick the poster on the wall and any particular hardware we needed for our demonstration. I never had the feeling that she wasn’t my lecturer. I felt like she knew us from a long time and she was ready to give us all the support we needed. Moreover, she was coming to us every now and then and asking if we were ok or if we needed anything. This first impression helped us get rid of some tension and worries that we were having about the presentation. Sundar was taking very good care of us as he was asking us on our wellness and confidence.

The Conference & Resources

Before the conference started, we all got our designated place to stick our poster and set up the environment and equipments for the demonstration. We all had our laptops with us so we settled down with all the set-up. The Demonstration segment of the conference started at 3:00 pm. The Dean officially welcomed all of us and declared the start of the conference. There were a good number of people including students, lecturers and industry people. They were attentive to detail looking at the posters of different products and if they were interested about the product they asked for a demonstration. Some of them just came and asked the students to explain and demonstrate the product. There was euphoria of enthusiasm all around the hall and Projects were being appreciated all around, Projects from St-Patrick’s students got lots of interest from all kind of different people and they praised our projects. Mr. Paul French from Taylor Lock Company was interested about my product MoHSACS (Mobile Home Security and Appliance Controlling System) to be used with the lock his company invented. He gave me his business card and asked me to contact him. The Demonstrations was from 3:00 pm to 4:30 pm. At the end Mr. Ajit Narayan, Head of the School of Computing declared the winners of the prizes. Unfortunately, none of the prizes went to St-Patrick’s students but we were happy with what we achieved –positive response and recognition for our relentless effort. Going to the conference is a great opportunity for any Computing Final Year student. It was like viewing the future, as in, knowing what kind of jobs we can expect or what the industry people are looking to get from the fresh graduates.

After the Conference

Soon after the awards ceremony we were appreciated by the lecturers from the technology department for our efforts. Many thanks to Penny Hart, Kate Dingley, Amanda, Alice and Jane just to name a few who made it a point to see us of personally. We felt touched by your professionalism – Many thanks. Being the optimists we decided to head straight to the city to have a look around. The day being clear and bright we decided to visit the Harbour and Gunwharf. We spent some really good time. After the sun down, we went to have some meal and then headed to the station. We took the 8:30pm train back to London and at around 10, we reached Waterloo. The journey back to London was very enjoyable. Everyone was talking and sharing jokes, we were having a good laugh. When I reached home, I felt very satisfied with the outcome of the conference.

Projects from St-Patrick’s Students - Where we stand

Attending this years Conference, I got a clear idea about us- the St-Patrick’s students in terms of our project standard. I was pleased to know that the project coordinator (Penny Hart) and other lecturers of the University of Portsmouth believe that our projects have a very good standard. And they also believe we work really hard to reach our project goals and our ideas are sometimes better than their students; which gave me a lot of satisfaction.

Prospective St-Patrick’s BSc. Computing Students – What can be done

The prospective BSc. Computing students should focus more on their projects, try to progress for the prototype and create good project posters so that they can get a chance to be invited to the conference. Being in the Student Conference means a lot and makes big difference in thinking. Once there, a student will learn to think differently towards his/her project and grow the hunger to do better. I felt we, St-Patrick’s students have some lacking in few areas that I would like to point out. First of all, our posters are not up to the standard. I was impressed to see some posters of the Portsmouth students. Those posters are really wonderful, they stand out and more importantly, they convey the message. Our posters were mostly in black and white and in A3 pages. What we did is, we made few A3 pages, printed it in black and white and then stuck in the wall. Some might say if the product is good, you don’t need to advertise. Well, that’s true but we are living in a world where the competition is very high and you need to catch some eyes to be sold. Even though the main idea is not to sell, it is definitely good to have some professional looking posters. Secondly, we can work more on our presentation. Our presentation this time was definitely good but we could’ve definitely done better if we could have managed a bit more of resources on time. Last but not the least is showing the prototype in live environment instead of in emulators. There are two good reasons for that. One, it looks more real and two, people from the industry watching the demonstration can have a better associate with the product and more realistic idea about the end product.